Bringing you closer to the Royal Shakespeare Company

FIFTY YEARS ON (5)‏

The summer of 1964 saw me back in Stratford and this time for a whole week! I had just finished my schooldays and my ‘A’ level results were on the horizon (in fact, they were due in a few days). Meantime, I was determined to enjoy an absolute feast of theatre and I was not disappointed. On the day I arrived (Saturday), I had tickets for the matinee of RICHARD II and the evening performance of HENRY IV -PART I. As usual, I made my way down to the theatre as soon as possible and purchased programmes. A quick glance at the cast for each play showed that I would soon be seeing some now familiar faces from previous productions -David Warner, Roy Dotrice, Ian Holm, Janet Suzman, Eric Porter, Jeffery Dench, John Normington and Jeffery Dench. The programmes were more detailed than two years previously and they provided much food for thought over lunch – no pun intended!

I still have the programmes for this historic season and readers may be interested in the following quote from an article about the then RSC: “The Royal Shakespeare Company believe that the Elizabethan theatre and especially Shakespeare offers a dramatic richness unequalled in any other epoch or language …the aim of the Royal Shakespeare Company is to express this richness so that it is immediate to modern audiences, an experience that reverberates with the thoughts and feelings of today “.

Some retrospective thoughts about the productions I enjoyed that week will follow in future blogs but I cannot resist referring to the weather on that first day of my week in Stratford. It may have been early August but as I made my way from the theatre in search of lunch, the heavens opened and there followed a downpour worthy of the winter months. Ah, but didn’t someone write something about “..the rain it raineth every day “?!! Actually, it WAS typical of some of the days we have experienced during the past week because when we came out of the matinee, the sun was shining brightly and it was becoming quite hot.

I should also at this stage like to relate how I first discovered the Stratford -upon-Avon Poetry Festival. Between performances, I came across this magnificent Tudor Building not far from the theatre and Holy Trinity Church. Correct, my first encounter with Hall’s Croft. The following evening there would be a programme of poems and readings under the title of THE MAN TRAP. It was arranged by Patrick Garland and would be performed by Fenella Fielding and Max Adrian. Now I had nothing booked for the following evening but enquiries within revealed that the tickets had long been sold but ..now this WAS interesting ..if I would care to purchase a ticket and sit in the lounge, the performance would be heard there even if the actors were not seen and coffee would be served in the interval. As you may guess, I purchased a ticket and had a rather special surprise the following evening.

One Response

Tony
I am so much enjoying your blogs. Keep them coming. Henry 1V part one was the first Shakespeare play i ever acted in at school. I was Hal. During the recent wonderful History plays- i came some forty years later to see the production with two friends from that school production who played Falstaff and Hotspur. David Warner, as Falstaff was somewhat better!
Thank you Tony.